Just returned from part 2 of one of the most extensive physicals I've ever had. Pretty cool, too. Blood, urine, x-rays, ear-eye-nose-throat were done this morning, with the stress test this afternoon. Everything was ridiculously normal, and the stress test was such a piece of cake the technician advised that I might want to save my breath and stop talking so much while I was on the treadmill, but what the hell. He finally cranked the sucker up to a trotting pace and we reached my target heart rate, and if I DIDN'T shoot the breeze with the guy I would have dozed the frig off. I don't give good monotony. Bore me out and I don't care where I am or what's going on...it's nap time. Fell asleep last year when they were doing an MRI. That after all of the warnings that if the thing frightens you, just press the buzzer and we'll get you out. Yeah, right. If I lie back with nothing to do I'm going to sleep, case closed. Old Marine habit. Catch the Z's where and when you can.
Won't know the results from all of the nebulous bloodwork nonsense, nor the stress test until tomorrow or Wednesday, but if they call THAT a stress test then I'd hate to see a stress-LESS test. I keep telling the medical profession that I'm Sicilian and that all of those wonderful things they've learned about homo sapien don't apply. My blood pressure doesn't go past 110 over 70 unless I'm running a marathon, my heart rate has made many a doctor, nurse, and PA do a double-take, my vision remains 20/20 and my hearing is as good as the machine can test to. Blow into a tube? Most of the machines max out at 150% (yeah I know there ain't no such thing as 150% but this is the medical profession we're talking about), and I take 'em to their limit each and every time someone wants to know how the old lungs are doing.
But the tech at long last got my pulse to 165 and my BP to 140/80, so it was off the treadmill, back into some decent clothing, and on home so I could relate the experience to you wonderful nutcases. I've said it before and you'll hear it from me again. At my age they MUST find something wrong, so they test and test and test. Pisses them off to no end that I enjoy my cigars but have lungs as clean as a whistle, and that I still don't need prescription glasses, and that I haven't developed arthritis or allergies or anything they can warn me about. But they warn me anyway and I nod in agreement because it's gotta be a bitch to go through all of that schooling and not find a halfway decent disease or condition in a man past his mid-50's. I see it in their sad little faces and it kills me.
Maybe next time I'll complain about something. And if I do I guarantee, absolutely guarantee that if I point to an area and say "ow" they'll find something wrong.
Well, I can't say ow, so perhaps I'll put it like I'm uncomfortable or something like that. Would cheer their little hearts to no end. I betcha.
PS
Okay, now keep this to yourself but something DID rattle my chain a little this day. The technician shaved my chest, and it's no big deal that he used a little girly razor that took forever, but a full grown man should have hair on his chest. Just got out of the shower, took one look at myself and for a moment didn't know who the little peach-fuzz pussy was that was staring back at me through the mist.
No comments:
Post a Comment